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Group fitness systems and methods

Group fitness systems and methods description/claims

This application is a non-provisional application claiming priority to co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/887,506 titled “Group Fitness System,” filed Jan. 31, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

This application is related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/377,600 titled “Apparatus and Methods for Transmitting Programming, Receiving and Displaying Programming, Communicating With Exercise Equipment, and Accessing and Passing Data to and from Applications,” filed on Mar. 15, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

This application is also related to U.S. Pat. No. 7,066,865, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/438,715 titled “Exercise Device and Method for Simulating Physical Activity,” filed on May, 22, 2006, and co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/644,777 titled “Exercise Device,” filed on Dec. 22, 2006, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

This application relates to operation and control of a plurality of exercise devices. In particular, this application relates to networking a plurality of exercise devices to allow for communication between the exercise devices and/or interactivity between users of the exercise devices.

Exercise equipment is typically focused on providing an individual user with some form of exercise, but is not focused on entertainment, news, network access, communication between users, etc. Occasionally, a gym will place a television or television in the work out area. However, users must share the television. Moreover, gyms like exercise equipment, are typically not focused on interaction between users, network access, user information, and other sources of data and information. It is with some of these issues in mind that various aspects described in this application have been developed.

Various classes are known to involve an instructor and one or more participants each of whom independently operates a similar exercise device. Interaction between the participants and the instructor is typically limited to instructions provided by the instructor for participants to alter their activity and/or to alter the control of their exercise device.

A group exercise system may include: at least one master exercise device including a variable parameter and being operatively associated with a control system; and at least one servant exercise device including the variable parameter and being in communication with the control system. In some embodiments, the control system may include a exercise control program configured to control the variable parameter in both the at least one master exercise and the at least one servant exercise device.

In some embodiments, the control system may be configured to receive communication signals from at least the at least one master exercise device to alter control of the variable parameter in both the at least one master exercise and the at least one servant exercise device from the control by the exercise control program.

Some embodiments may involve a group exercise method. Still further embodiments may involve a computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions for performing a group exercise method when executed on a computer device.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a layout for a group fitness system.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating another example of a layout for a group fitness system.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a layout for a group fitness system, including examples of communication/data flow within the system.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating operations that may be performed in a method for group fitness.

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